An Olympic event

Torchbearer Farida Ussmane walking her flame past
Queen's Court, Hatfield Road.

I don't know; you wait over sixty years for a key event, and then two occur on the same afternoon.  It was either support Andy Murray in his quest to win a Wimbledon final, or turn out for the Olympic torch as it slogged its way through Fleetville.  As it happened I managed to do both, partly due to a rain delay in SW19.

It was certainly chaotic, and a perfect example of how so many thousand people could, with the accumulated mass of bodies, close roads by occupying them.  Children took the opportunity to play games in the middle of Hatfield Road during the gap between the initial police outriders and the brash and irrelevant sponsor vehicles.  Irrelevant in all other senses than the fact that they paid for this snake of an event.

There has probably never been another event in the history of the East End of St Albans that has managed to bring so many residents onto the streets.  Unless, that is, anyone can remember an earlier event.  From the photos I have seen and the day I remembered, not even the coronation carnival procession on wet June 2nd 1953, which formed up at Oakwood Drive and travelled into the city centre, drew as many people as today.

You probably will never be able to play in the middle
of Hatfield Road again.

Gazebos in front gardens, parties at pubs, hawkers selling flags and self-inflating torches,  chairs on the pavement and groups hanging from balconies.  It was one big messy street party.  But as for the purpose of it all; blink and you missed it.  Farida Ussmane from London, who had the honour of carrying the torch from Beaumont Avenue at least managed to walk her section, which was just as well as we wouldn't otherwise have seen much at all, so hemmed in was her narrow corridor and so surrounded by the athletic muscle men of the police escort.

This afternoon will be a landmark event in the life of this part of St Albans.  Thousands of memories and millions of photos will ensure that July 8th 2012 will become part of our recorded history.  We all witnessed St Albans' own "moment to shine."


There would remain only one further obstacle: the amount of time required to leave Morrison's car park.

The party's over but the crowds linger across Sutton Road.